Liquid crystal displays are attracting attention because of their features such as slimness, lightweight and low power consumption and widely used in portable equipment such as cellular phones and watches, office automation equipment such as personal computer monitors and notebook computers, domestic electrical equipment such as video cameras and liquid crystal televisions, and so on. Laminated films including laminate of retardation films and any of various polarizing plates are used in conventional Liquid crystal displays. For example, a liquid crystal display is disclosed in which a laminated film that includes a retardation film having a refractive index ellipsoid satisfying the relation nx>nz>ny and is placed on one side of an in-plane switching (IPS) liquid crystal cell to improve the contrast ratio in oblique directions (see, for example, Patent document 1 listed below). However, liquid crystal displays produced with a conventional laminated film cause a problem in which leakage of light or significant changes in color (also referred to as a large amount of color shift) occur depending on the viewing direction, for example, when a black image displayed on a screen is viewed from oblique directions.
Such a laminated film is generally bonded to a liquid crystal cell with an interposed pressure-sensitive adhesive layer. However, a conventional laminated film causes a problem in which the laminated film is difficult to separate from a liquid crystal cell, or a certain component of the laminated film (such as a retardation film or a pressure-sensitive adhesive layer) is left on the surface of a liquid crystal cell after the process of peeling the laminated film. In general, liquid crystal display panels undergo inspection before they are shipped. As a result of the inspection, if the laminated film itself is defective or if there is foreign matter between the laminated film and the liquid crystal cell, the laminated film will be separated such that the liquid crystal cell can be recycled (or reworked). Ideally, the laminated film should be bonded to the liquid crystal cell such that peeling or bubbles can be prevented even in a high-temperature, high-humidity environment, while the laminated film should be easily separable from the liquid crystal cell such that the liquid crystal cell can be recycled without causing damage or a change in cell gap. In conventional technologies, it has been difficult to satisfy such conflicting features at the same time. Thus, there have been demands for liquid crystal display panels in which such problems are overcome.
Patent Literature 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 11-305217